


Roadside

by Dark_K



Category: Sons of Anarchy, Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Gen, Happy Ending, I Don't Even Know, I cannot deal with SoA finale, It just happened and I needed everyone happy again, Light Angst, M/M, Stiles & Jax friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-04
Updated: 2016-09-04
Packaged: 2018-08-13 02:17:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7958458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dark_K/pseuds/Dark_K
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles finds him by the side of the road, and it doesn’t even cross his mind not taking him home.<br/>He’s hurt, dirty, covered in nothing but a hospital gown, now torn to tatters, soaked through from the rain.<br/>And Stiles takes him home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Roadside

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Alzipher](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alzipher/gifts).



> I've got no other excuse other than: I cannot deal with Sons of Anarchy finale, so I decided to make Jax happy. It didn't _quite_ work, but close enough.
> 
> Hope you guys enjoy it - Especially Alzipher, who put up with me through all the seventh season of SoA. <3

**Roadside**

Stiles finds him by the side of the road, and it doesn’t even cross his mind not taking him home.

He’s hurt, dirty, covered in nothing but a hospital gown, now torn to tatters, soaked through from the rain.

And Stiles takes him home.

**X**

He thinks he has a fever when he wakes up in a warm bed, dry and in a clean shirt. He’s tired – _beyond_ tired, really – and he feels sick, so he just turns around, and keeps his eyes closed.

There are sounds of pans and footsteps, the smell of food and old books, but he doesn’t try to see, he doesn’t care to find out where he is and why.

He left the hospital because he shouldn’t be alive – that was the whole _point_ of everything he did on what should have been his last day on Earth. Now he’s been spared, and he doesn’t care enough to even try and see where he ended up.

**X**

He has a gang tattoo – Stiles isn’t stupid, he knows exactly what that means, but he also knows _done_ and _tired_ and _given up_ when he sees it, and in those blue eyes, that’s all he sees: something ended that hasn’t bothered to fall to pieces yet, probably because he doesn’t know he can, doesn’t realize that just giving up is actually an option.

The man doesn’t ask how he came to wear Stiles’s old t-shirt instead of the hospital gown he’d been wearing, doesn’t ask his name, or why Stiles is helping him, he just… goes along.

Stiles doesn’t bother him on that first day – he waits, to see where this is going to lead him.

The man watches him, but doesn’t speak, so Stiles lets him keep his silence. He works on a couple of essays for his classes in the coming week, turns the TV quietly on some stupid TV show about vampires and werewolves, because it always lifts his spirits, but all in all, he keeps silent, and so does the mystery man occupying his bed as he sleeps on the couch.

**X**

“Why?”

He knows it’s not very polite – he hasn’t yet asked for the kid’s name, hasn’t thanked him (although he didn’t want to be saved, so doesn’t that mean he shouldn’t have to thank him for saving his life anyway?). He also knows he isn’t clear in his question, but the kid stops by the bed, where he’s leaving a mug full of something steamy and which smells heavenly.

He can’t be a day older than twenty, but his eyes are older – so much older. This is a kid who’s seen some shit, who’s done some shit, and that is why he chooses to believe whatever answer the kid gives him.

“You needed help,” it’s his answer, accompanied by a small shrug, “I know some people who don’t like hospitals either,” he continues, and he doesn’t say anything else, just watches him for a moment, “I’m Stiles,” the kid tells him in a calm voice, already turning his back and walking out of the room.

“Jackson,” he whispers – the only indication the kid gives him that he even heard is a tiny snort from what he guesses is the living room.

**X**

It’s Monday again when Stiles finally has to leave the house, and he isn’t sure he’ll find the man – Jackson – still at home when he comes back from classes.

After a grueling eight hours from classes to his job at a bookstore and then back for one more class before coming home, he gets in to find Jackson on the couch.

He’s wearing sweatpants that are too short, and a shirt that is too tight, clearly having raided Stiles’s wardrobe.

Stiles raises an eyebrow at him, and Jackson shrugs, turning back to the TV.

“Did you eat anything?” he asks, because he didn’t help the man just to have him starve two days later.

Jackson nods at him, and Stiles nods back – at least he’s eating.

**X**

It takes him three days to take a shower, and he does it when Stiles is away – in class, he guesses. It takes him the whole week to try and prod about the apartment when he’s left alone in it, peeking through books he finds lying around. Mythology, criminology, psychology, a little bit of everything and nothing specific.

He never went to college, he has no idea if this myriad of interests is a thing that happens to everyone, or if this is a Stiles’ only thing. Poking around some more, he finally notices the pictures hanging on the corkboard by the bookcase – a floppy haired kid throwing a peace sign with his eyes closed. A red-headed girl smirking at the camera. A dark skinned boy piggyback riding on a blond kid, the two of them laughing.

It’s a life.

It’s a common, normal life – he feels something then, something other than the emptiness of the past few days, something more than the calm and acceptance he had felt ever since he found out his mother had killed Tara, he feels _something_.

He’s not sure what it is, but it is definitely better than whatever he was going through before.

**X**

“I’m heading home for Christmas.”

It’s the third week of December, and he only has one more day of classes before being free till the new year.

Jackson goes very still by his side, and Stiles goes on.

“You can still stay here. There’s food in the fridge, and I can leave you stuff enough for you not to starve for the duration. It’s only two weeks, anyway,” he tells Jackson, who is still frozen at the spot.

He turns around, looks at the man’s profile, studying him for a moment.

“Or you can come with me,” he adds, not expecting an answer.

He doesn’t get one.

**X**

Jackson isn’t sure why he follows Stiles home, but he does.

The first time he gets out of the kid’s apartment, it’s raining like the world is going to end, and they run to the Jeep parked right in front of the door – although calling it a Jeep might be exaggerating it a little, it’s more like the _concept_ of a Jeep, hold together by wishful thinking and dirt.

“I can fix this up for you,” he says, when they’ve been on the road for about an hour, and the engine keep making this screeching sound every time Stiles changes gears.

It’s as close to talking about his past as he’s gone the past few weeks – months, really, if Christmas is approaching already.

He expects a follow-up question, but Stiles just hums a bit before speaking.

“I may take you up on that.”

And that is that. No questions about how he knows cars or why he’s offering. No questions about his past, or his future for that matter.

It’s a strange thing that, with this kid, he can kind of just… exist. No questions asked.

**X**

“He’s not Derek, Stiles.”

Stiles sighs – he _knows_ Jackson is not Derek.

Derek was a bad boy action figure with marshmallow filling. He’d do anything to protect anyone but himself, and if he could help it, he would never hurt anyone, ever.

Jackson, though, even the _air_ around him is dangerous. Even the way he moves inspires caution – but he’s also so broken, so hopeless, so _sad_ that Stiles wants to help him, and he’s not very sure why either. He just does.

“I know that, dad. This isn’t _about_ Derek,” Stiles replies, even as he is inspecting Derek’s old loft, to see if he can set Jackson up there.

No one questions why he has a key – it just seems natural that, after leaving, Derek would leave _him_ a key to his place.

His dad sighs, and just helps him open one more window, so the stuffy air can be cleared out.

Jackson comes in like a death sentence has been hung over him – he watches all his corners, inspects all the ways out. It’s easy to do it in the loft, it’s part of the reason why Derek chose this place after everything he had been through.

It’s not about Derek, though. It’s about helping someone in need.

**X**

The kid’s father is the Sheriff, and that almost makes Jackson bolt so fast they’d see the tracks on the floor when he took off running, but he doesn’t.

There’s something in him that doesn’t want to leave Stiles behind – not like it was with Tara, it’s closer to what he feels for his own kids. There’s something… off with Beacon Hills, just like anyone could see there was something off with Charming. Stiles is a good kid, saving of strangers aside, he goes to college, he studies, he works in a bookshop to help his dad with the bills. Jackson feels grateful – that Stiles found him, that he’s been helping him, so he doesn’t want to leave.

Plus, what’s the worse that could happen? He’s been run over by a truck, spent months in a coma and ran from the hospital the second he realized he could – let the Sheriff arrest him if that’s what he wants to do.

He doesn’t.

The Sheriff eyes him cautiously, offers him a plate of food, and talks to his son about school, about his course load, about coming home more often since it’s just two hours away.

They take a few minutes to talk among themselves, and offer him a place to live. The garage in town is in need of an honest mechanic, and if he is actually good at it, he could give it a go.

It’s when he is setting himself up in the place they’ve found him that he hears the name for the first time: Derek.

Christmas goes by, and Jackson starts to feel like a person – Stiles’s friends aren’t many, but they are loyal. They don't like him, at first, and the name comes up again every time one of them tries to understand why Stiles is helping him.

“He’s not Derek, Stiles.”

It’s said as a warning, with pity, with sadness, with doubt.

And Stiles’s answer never wavers, never changes, never seems different.

“I know,” he replies, and everyone lets it go.

**X**

When he leaves to go back to college after Christmas is over, Jackson has a place, four new shirts, two pairs of jeans, and new shoes. He also has a job, and a cheap phone to contact him if he needs it.

Stiles comes home every weekend after that – it’s not only because of Jackson, but because his pack needs him. He visits the man, who’s adjusting. He functions, which is more than Stiles had seen him doing when he was staying with him before. He showers, and buys food with the money he earns from working on cars all day long. He cooks, and sleeps, and Stiles thinks, well, it’s good enough.

He may not be winning any awards on normal person any time soon, but at least he’s doing better.

Stiles is glad Jackson is healing, and he is hopeful that everything is going to be okay with him.

And that is when the Calaveras come to town.

**X**

He knows Araya. She works with the Mayans, sometimes. They try to keep their gun dealings on the right side of the law, but everyone who deals in weapons straddles that fence, and sometimes you just can’t help but fall on the wrong side of it.

Jackson follows Stiles because he thinks the kid is up to no good, and he’s not going to let that happen – he won’t.

If he has to kidnap the kid and drag him to another country to keep him away from drugs, and guns, and killings, he will, because Stiles saved him – he is _still_ saving him – and he has to keep the kid from making terrible choices.

Stiles tries to stop him from coming, but the Sheriff encourages him to follow – tells him where they are meeting with the Mexican family, and when he gets there, Stiles and his friend Scott are facing the Calaveras on their own.

By the way Stiles’s friend’s shoulder tense, he’s heard him coming from a mile away, but Stiles only realizes he’s there when Jackson stops at his back, ready to steal a weapon and start shooting if it means defending this kid.

Araya takes one look at him and smirks that annoying smile of hers, raising an eyebrow.

“Jax Teller,” she says as a greeting, surprise coloring her voice, and he only crosses his arms and glares.

She looks at Stiles then, eyebrow still raised, but there’s a hint of pity in there.

“Do you collect the broken ones, _chico_?”

Stiles sighs in annoyance before answering.

“He’s not Derek.”

The woman eyes him suspiciously for a few moments, but lets it go, and they keep on talking borders and hunting grounds, as if Jackson isn’t even there.

Now, Jackson knows he started out early. There had been no other path for him than becoming the leader of the Sons, making deals, giving out orders, but when he was Stiles’s age, that’s all he did: follow orders.

Stiles and his friend are on their own here – this is _their_ dealing, and Jackson panics for a moment because he doesn’t know how to stop this, how to save Stiles from it, if he’s the head of whatever this is.

He misses most of the talk for being in a panic, and only goes back to paying attention to it when Araya calls his name.

“Teller,” she says softly, almost pityingly, “Do they know you’re alive?” He shakes his head no, and she hums, glancing at Stiles once before looking at him again and sighing, “You are way in over your head here, _chico_. If you want to steer clear of this kind of shit, you should leave, _now_.”

She turns her back and leaves, and the Scott kid tells Stiles they’ll meet later. Stiles sighs before looking at him, and Jackson wants to cry.

He’s never been shy about his crying, never bought into the myth that it makes you weak – it makes you human. He just hadn’t yet felt enough to do it ever since he ran from the hospital in a gown in the middle of a storm.

“You can go, you know, if you want to. This isn’t your problem, you don’t have to stick around.”

Jackson wants to strangle this kid.

“Do you have _any idea_ what you’re getting yourself into here? Do you have _any idea_  what that woman does for a living?” he asks, voice shaking in anger, eyes blurring with tears – he’s been saved to watch the one who saved him fall, and this is just _not right_.

Stiles laughs, quietly, bitterly, and watches him for a second, his head tilted and a strange smile on his lips.

“I know it better than you.”

**X**

Jackson doesn’t take the news of werewolves like Stiles expected.

Scott’s mom had freaked out, and his own dad didn’t believe him until he saw it with his own eyes. As far as adults, proper adults, go, they never buy into it until they see it – Jackson listens to it all, stares at Stiles for a long moment, and then asks for the bite.

Stiles looks at him and tries to understand if he’s being mocked or tested, but Jackson looks serious and determined.

He talks to Scott, who talks to Araya, who laughs, and tells them it’s fine – whatever they do to Teller can’t be worse than what’s already been done, so they do it.

It should freak Stiles out that Jackson’s eyes flash blue right away, but, strangely, it doesn’t.

Scott is staring at him the whole time, and he sighs, annoyed.

“He’s not Derek,” he repeats before anyone can point that out to him for the thousand time, and his friend lets it go.

**X**

Being a werewolf is _surreal_.

Not in the way that being a werewolf would be surreal at any rate, but because of all the things that comes _with_ being a werewolf, the first one being that he’s a part of a werewolf _pack_.

Before, Stiles shielded him, and his friends accepted him because, apparently, they just accepted things Stiles did because he has a tendency to be right about things. Now, he is _one of them_.

He had no idea how much he missed this until he has it again.

He finds out where they come from – how the Sheriff’s wife died, leaving him with Stiles. How guilty he felt because he could never actually be there for his son, how being a part of the pack almost broke them irrevocably but ended up bringing them closer than ever.

He finds out Scott’s first girlfriend died in his arms. That his mom works all times of the day, and he tries to help as much as he can, but she won’t have him working, wants him to go to college and become whatever he wants to become.

He finds out Lydia is a banshee, and all death terrifies her because it’s such a huge part of her life. That she trusts Stiles more than she trusts herself, and she would do anything for him, as he would for her. That they tried to be together but couldn’t, because Stiles isn’t _hers_ , not anymore.

He finds out Liam became a werewolf so he wouldn’t die from falling off a roof. That his best friend is a human, but was a Beast for a while. That he wants to graduate high school, and go to the same college Stiles goes, because he doesn’t feel confident enough to be away from his pack.

He finds out Stiles was once possessed by a Japanese demon. That it was his hand, even if not his mind, that killed Scott’s girlfriend with a sword. That he wanted to forget about college and studying and become a deputy until he received a letter in the mail, with a check covering all of his expenses to go to the college he wanted to go, and how his dad had jumped at the chance to push him away from the life of violence he seemed destined for. He finds out Stiles cares so much about other people he has almost no room in him to care about himself. That he always puts pack first, and no one seems to be truly willing to put _him_ first.

That last part he doesn’t say out loud – it’s what Jackson gathers from the many interactions he observes, and he understands his purpose here, for once.

He’ll take care of this kid.

He doesn’t know how to be good – he doesn’t know how to do _good_ to the world, he never did. The more he tries to help, the bigger the messes he creates, so clearly that is not his path, but Stiles… Stiles does good without even trying, it’s what he’s good at, it seems to be what he is in the world _for_.

So he’ll protect him – from anything and anyone, to his last breath if he has to. He can’t go back to his kids, to his old life, without ruining them, but he can help _here_ , so he will.

They find out the hospital declared him dead when they didn’t find him on his bed, which isn’t far from the truth: that Jackson is dead, buried, and gone forever.

He has a place in life now – sure, it’s different, and it’s strange, but he does have one. Things are calm now, things are almost good – Beacon Hills had gone through a rough patch, but things seem to be settling down, so he works, and he eats, and he sleeps, and he sticks around to protect Stiles first, and then his own pack.

The year goes by, and summer approaches. Stiles comes home, Lydia comes home, and they have a barbecue in the Sheriff’s backyard.

Everything is calm.

And then Derek comes home.

**X**

“ _Who’s Derek?_ ” is a question that always seems to be lurking in Jackson’s eyes, but he never does voice it. Maybe he thinks he can’t, or maybe that he doesn’t deserve to know. Stiles chooses not to tell him, because he doesn’t know how to explain any of it. He doesn’t even know why people keep warning him that Jackson isn’t Derek, because he knows this, he does.

Jackson isn’t Derek because no one is, only him.

As they are eating in his backyard, sun shining on them, laughter going around, Derek comes in from the shadows of the trees, looking hopeful, and sad, and sorry, and _there_.

He frowns when he can smell a new werewolf in their pack, but otherwise doesn’t move, waiting for permission, for an invitation, for something.

Stiles wants to go and hug him, or maybe punch him, because it’s been a year, and a letter full of cash to pay for his college with a note saying ‘ _Wait for me’_ is not fair, is not enough, but it _is_ so very Derek.

He does neither.

“I gave your loft to Jackson,” he says, and Derek smiles at him, and suddenly he’s filled with the impression that everything _can_ be okay, if only he can keep that smile there.

“I can always buy a house,” he answers with a shrug, hands in his pockets, and Scott finally gets up and _does_ hug him, inviting him in.

He sits, he eats, he stays, and just like that, it’s like he’s never left.

**X**

Stiles throws himself at things with no regard to his personal safety, and that is something Jackson knows, but doesn’t fully understands how dangerous it is until Derek comes back.

Derek is damaged.

Oh, he’s healing, he’s _been_ healing, apparently, for a very long time, and he seems to have his shit together for the time being, but he’s damaged.

Damaged people tend to damage everyone around them without realizing it – he should know, he’s done that his whole life.

Stiles is damaged too, but he isn’t broken – not yet.

Watching them dance around each other, and then start something, worries Jackson deeply.

It worries everyone.

Not because they think they’ll be bad together, but because they may break each other irreparably and not even notice.

Scott dares not say anything, he feels guilty enough for not believing Stiles when he should have, and not being there for him when he needed it, that he doesn’t feel like he _can_ say anything, even if it’s just a request for them to be careful.

Lydia feels it’s not her place to try, because she’s already hurt Stiles so much, and she’s afraid it’ll sound like a sour grapes thing if she warns him of anything.

Liam and Mason can’t say anything, because it would be like a kid warning their older brother of something, it would never work.

The Sheriff can’t, because he doesn’t know how – he’s scared he’ll lose Stiles if it came down to a choice between him or Derek, and so they all just watch and hope.

They hope because Derek is one of them too, even if he ran and came back only over a year later. They want him to be happy too, he’s their pack too.

He’s not Jackson’s, though. Not yet.

He sees why they kept on warning Stiles that he wasn’t Derek – he’s dangerous and broken, and Stiles rescued him, but he knows he was no replacement for Derek.

No one else is Derek, but _Derek is_ , and there’s the danger.

Stiles is not fragile, or stupid, or blind, but in this _one_ matter, he has no regard for his safety – Derek doesn’t either.

They could break each other completely, and don’t even see it.

“I’m not letting you hurt him,” he warns Derek one night, showing up in the apartment the other werewolf rented in the same town Stiles lives during the week.

He expects a fight, an argument, or at the very least a denial that it could ever happen, but Derek just stares at him for a long moment before tilting his head slightly in agreement.

“I’m counting on it.”

From that day on, they have an agreement, of sorts.

**X**

Everyone has a place in the pack.

Scott leads, and Derek defends. Stiles counsels, and the Sheriff protects. Liam fights, and Mason helps. Lydia thinks things through, and Parrish watches over them. It works, for them, it’s been working for a long time, even before Jackson showed up in their lives, and Derek came back. He thought that maybe he would never find a place in it, but he has one now.

Of all the people in their pack, the only one who doesn’t seem to understand that he is just as important as everyone else is Stiles, and that is Jackson’s part – he takes care of Stiles, so he can take care of everyone else.

After a whole life of hurting people, of getting his loved ones killed, watching Stiles’s back, defending a truly good human being, seems like a noble enough goal.

He’s content in his new place in life – not happy, never happy, he may never know what happiness is again, but he has a purpose and mission that he can, and will, accomplish to his last breath.

And that is good enough for him.

He’s always been a loaded gun – now he’s a shield.

He can’t ask for anything more.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading it!
> 
>  
> 
> [Come tell me what you think of it.](http://darkjan.tumblr.com/)


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